The Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) is a joint venture of major motion picture studios, started in March 2003. DCI's primary purpose was to develop and promote specifications for an emerging digital cinema market. These specifications include a set of content requirements to enable compatibility and interoperability.
Among the various parts of the “Digital Cinema System Specification” first released on Jul. 20, 2005 (and subsequently updated periodically), there is a set of performance specifications for the projection systems and/or its content regarding color space, resolution, brightness, contrast and interfaces.
As the technology of projector systems progress, however, the performance of today's most advanced projectors may well outperform the projector systems as specified in the DCI specifications.